Exciting News

This is a horrid picture of my latest set of wine charms. It symbolizes the Twilight series book Eclipse. There's the words, Bella, Edward and Jacob, and also a dream catcher, motorbike and Italy.



But that's not the exciting part. The exciting part is that a friend of Charisse's makes and sells wine glasses with fun sayings and artwork on them. She wanted to buy my charms wholesale - meaning she would like to try and sell them in her booths and at shows and markets alongside her glasses and other products. She took eight sets to Canton this weekend to see how they would do. We'll probably try again at Dallas market this summer too. It could mean many, many new orders for my charms and a lot of work!

But we'll cross that bridge if we get to it. Meanwhile, I'm just excited about the opportunity.

No Mystery Here

Guess we know where Ethan gets his eye color...

Not so little girl...

Sarah had her dance recital pictures taken on Sunday. We had to get the whole costume on with hair and make-up and run to the dance studio for a five minute photo session. She looked adorable in her jazzy outfit. They'll be dancing to "Shake Your Tail Feather" in June.




While we waited our turn, we ran into Finley - a girl from her class. Finley had just gotten her ears pierced and was telling everyone who would listen. Sarah was definitely interested, as she's been asking for about a year now. So on a whim, we went to Claire's ... still in costume. Sarah's kindergarten teacher just happened to be in the store shopping with her granddaughter! So Mrs. Pompa gave her a big hug and got the heck out of there just in case it did not go well.

Waiting for mom to fill out the paperwork.



She could be Lady Gaga except she doesn't sing in front of people, remember?



Success! And a giant crocodile tear! But she did it and Mrs. Pompa came back to give her another big hug. They are tiny daisies with pink stones for petals. She was very excited to show them off at school today.

Fiesta - El Rey Feo

The Royal Fiesta Court came to visit Sarah and Jacob's school last week. El Rey Feo is the "People's King". There are also a myriad of others on the court and multiple queens. I don't even understand them all. But since their motorcade had blocked in my car in the parking lot, I had no choice but to stay and listen to the presentation. His message to the kids was "Education is Golden."



The wind was chilly but the atmosphere was fired up as the King mentioned that Hardy Oak was the #1 elementary school in San Antonio!



They told a sweet story about looking for a golden coin that showed education is power and had them chanting "college! college! college!"





The whole visit took about 30 minutes but it was fun for the kids to see and they each got a golden coin that said "education is golden" on it. Fiesta is a big deal here in the Alamo City. The kids were out of school Friday for the Battle of Flowers parade holiday.

Young Masters Art Show

Sarah had a piece of art selected for the Young Masters Art Show (representing elementary school art from around the district). We had to go to a big auditorium to see her art and many others. She got to see Mrs. Newman, the principal, and get extra kudos from her.





Afterwards, we went to dinner at one of our favorite family restaurants, the Wetmore Store. Good BBQ, brisket, cold beer and an indoor play area with a doll house, train table and pretend kitchen.



They have live music a lot but we are usually gone by the time it starts. This night, we did get to hear three people sing karaoke. The man running the show asked Jacob if he wanted to sing but he said no. We tried to convince Sarah but she said "I don't sing in front of people!" so I guess it's good she has her artistic ability to fall back on because it sure will be hard to become a rock star if she doesn't sing in front of people!

Fiesta & Fun

Thursday at the preschool we had a very fun and festive Fiesta celebration. It was raining like crazy (and still is Saturday morning) so the entire thing was held indoors. Two or three games in every classroom and some in the halls, a giant bouncy obstacle course from one end of the sanctuary to the other, hot dogs and slushies in the welcome center. Bonus - no bees! The kids got new KDO shirts and so did mom. But I forgot my camera at the bead shop so, c'est la vie. No photos.

Friday night at the elementary school, we attended Movies with Mom. We saw Race to Witch Mountain in the cafeteria and got free hot dogs, chips, lemonade and popcorn. It was a little on the scary side in parts and Jacob tried to be tough but ended up sitting on my lap for about 10 minutes. Sarah too. I was ticked off at several kids who were playing in the bathrooms. There was a group of girls that were talking about locking all the stall doors and crawling out from under them so all the doors would be locked. They were chanting "Bloody Mary Bloody Mary" (because apparently there is a ghost story going around the school), and talking about trying to scare people. I told them to get out of the bathroom and they said "we were just standing in there." I told them that standing in there was fine but all the other stuff they talked about (insert shocked looks here: "she heard us?!?!") like locking doors and scaring kids was not. Now get out.

Later in the movie, Sarah had to go to the restroom so I followed her to make sure those girls weren't still in there and thankfully, they were not. But Jacob comes flying out of the boys bathroom and says that while he was going, a boy stuck his head under the stall divider and saw him going pee. So I yell in there for those boys to get out of the bathroom. Nobody came out. So I waited outside intending to see who it was. Then one of their mothers came looking for them and out they went. I didn't say anything but at least I know who it was.

I know these kind of childish things go on all day long at school but if I'm seeing it, I'm going to put a stop to it. And if my kids ever act like that (especially at a school function) there will be some major consequences.

So this morning, I'm off to Dallas to celebrate Dawn's 40th birthday (Dawn is Matthew's mom. Matthew is Ethan's birthday buddy). Be back tomorrow and I will try to remember the camera!

My kids' school is #1!

From an article in the San Antonio Express News:

Stellar schools in San Antonio are not relegated to one part of town. And while the neighborhood, size, wealth and ethnic make-up of successful schools in the San Antonio area may vary, there are several things they have in common: Strong leadership, almost fanatically dedicated faculty and staff, a focus on small learning groups, high expectations and a lot of hard work.

Children at Risk, a Houston-based advocacy group, is releasing its second round of annual school rankings for the San Antonio metro area Monday and gave the Express-News a sneak peek. Researchers used a wide array of indicators, including test scores, participation in advanced courses, graduation rates and class sizes to rank 374 of the area's elementary, middle and high schools from best to worst. The system, based on 2008-09 data, gives a boost to schools with a lot of low-income kids and leaves out some schools with insufficient data. Suburban North East Independent School District took bragging rights with five of the Top 10 elementary schools, including the No. 1-ranked Hardy Oak Elementary.

Hardy Oak
The No. 1-ranked Hardy Oak Elementary is located in the heart of the affluent enclave of Stone Oak. From the school parking lot the view is hilltop after hilltop dotted with rooftops of newly constructed homes. Across the street sits Lopez Middle School, the No. 2 rank in its category. Principal Sharon Newman said she knew when she opened the school 10 years ago that she probably wouldn't have to worry about getting enough kids to pass the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, so she set her sites beyond it.

“They come with a lot of skills in place so we made a commitment to take them as far as we can take them,” Newman said. “We expect our kids to be able to pass the TAKS. That's a given. We want them to meet the commended level.”

The percentage of students meeting the TAKS commended level is a variable in the rankings and the one that likely pushed Hardy Oak into the No. 1 spot. In fifth grade math, 90 percent of students had commended performance last year.

So that's exciting news! Everyone is very proud, and once again, I'm thankful that we kind of stumbled on this school when we selected our home when Jacob was just two years old!

Vive les Frenchies!

Lucas and I travelled to Omaha this weekend to visit Connie and her kids who were visiting from France. Alex and 'Luca' as they call him became fast friends, even though Alex had strep. This was in the hotel Saturday morning. Lots of motorcycles to watch out the window.



Alex's shirt says "Vive les Betises" which translated directly means "long live the stupid things" but means something more like "hooray for pranksters" so I dressed Lucas in his naughty-boy skater shirt to coordinate.





Sweet little boys' toes behind the curtain.



We spent time in the hotel pool and visited Connie's parents, sister and her four kids before heading to Lincoln Saturday night.